Cannon Hall Farm - Response to complaint

I eventually got a reply from Cannon Hall Farm nr Barnsley in response to my concerns about the welfare of their rabbits:

Hi Pauline,

It is obvious from your letter that you really care about rabbits and we will take your comments into our next refurbishment programme.

We are inspected by Barnsley Council and the RSPCA, we are passionate about animal welfare and believe that our rabbits are healthy and happy, indeed a good indicator of contentment is the fact that they reproduce readily.

They get ad lib hay everyday and I will take on board your comments about a complete pellet. Fresh veg is available every day. We have never had an injury when mixing rabbits and guinea pigs but we do not usually run them together only when space is at a premium or sometimes the more athletic rabbits jump from pen to pen. None of our rabbits are petted against their will and all in all we think Cannon Hall Farm is a good place for a rabbit to live.

Many Thanks for your comments.

Kind Regards,

Robert Nicholson
Director

What a load of old tosh they must be content because they reproduce so readily, they're rabbits!! :roll: and the more athletic rabbits jump from pen to pen - athletic? the walls are only a couple of foot high, even my Jojejoe who is more Jim Royle than Usain Bolt could jump over them, and none of the rabbits are petted against their will - how do they know? they've nowhere to run and hide so they've no choice

I'm not very good at writing letters, it took me ages to do the original one - anyone got any ideas of how to respond? :wave:

"The fact that they reproduce readily" is to me an admittal that they keep does and bucks together and dont have a neutering programme, so what exactly do they do with the abundance of babies being born each year as a result of that!!!!.

As for the inspections dont even get me started on that one as i know EXACTLY what the council one involves.

It is such a shame that other areas of the farm there are relatively good in comparison to other petting farms, but the rabbit and guinea pig area seems to have been totally forgotten.

I agree too the walls dont even come up to your knees in parts and if you stand there long enough you will regularly see them jumping over into each others pens.

I posted a pic last year showing a rabbit with the guinea pigs and there was nothing else in that pen so hardly pushed for space. Also for some reason another rabbit was completely on it's own over in the sheep pen with sheep walking around it.:roll:

What a shocking reply! :shock: Blatant admittance as holidayhutch says that no neutering programme in place, complete lack of understanding of rabbit health and behaviour and a very laid back approach to their care, to the point of negligence really. Outrageous.

I would reply addressing each point in turn. Don't worry about the time spent on your original letter - it will still be with them sinking in, and may get read again so just keep at it. I would reply to each point addressing your concerns in detail and back it up with facts.
When I wrote to the Director of Haskins Garden Centres I gave links for the RWAF website and other reputable information sites, one of which was the leaflet they produced (which was 10 years out of date and they hadn't got the updated version for their customers). I addressed individual points on the old leaflet they had in depth but keep it as concise as possible. People get bored and don't have time to read long letters. I also contact the RWAF and they sent some leaflets (by the box load) to the garden centre for distribution, including the MMC campagin material - I paid for it and told the man in his letter I had included some leaflets for his information! :lol: Basically made them support the MMC because they had all this stuff turn up and what else could they do. Obviously you don't have to do that but I would still get some leaflets and enclose them in an envelope with your letter so he can see in black and white the current recommendations on neutering, vaccination, care guides etc. So it's not just your word as crazy rabbit lady... well that's how I felt anyway! :wave:

I would also add that you are glad to hear that they are passionate about animal welfare because this means they will undoubtedly want to take all the issues you have raised on board.

Depending on what you said originally, you could then go on to say about how there are 33,000 rabbits brought into rescues every year; every rabbit that is rehomed from their farm is denying one of these rescue rabbits a home and indeed may end up in rescue themselves at a later date. As they are passionate about animal welfare they no doubt give advice on neutering, appropriate accommodation and ideally homecheck before allowing people to buy the babies?

As they are passionate about animal welfare they no doubt recognise that allowing rabbits to hop from pen to pen and thus breed with whichever bun they come across is bad practice...allowing indiscrimiate breeding means that a large male could potentially mate with a small female causing her significant distress during birth; not allowing females sufficient time to rest between litters if they are able to mate at will, because the mates are not carefully selected, how do they know that they're not breeding poor genetic traits such as dental problems, and none of these things give a good impression to the visiting public.

As they are so happy with their premises and the Council and RSPCA inspections, I would copy them in to your reply as well

They sell all the babies on.

OK, this has ended up a bit long I think - it's 2 sides of A4 in Word -, but hows about this for a reply to Cannon Hall? I've unashamedly nicked bits from your responses :wave: Please be honest if there's anything in it that needs changing, it's just a draft copy, I can take the criticism :lol:

Dear Robert
Thank you for your reply to my previous letter which outlined my concerns over the welfare of your rabbits at Cannon Hall.
I would like to respond to some of the points you made:
….”believe that our rabbits are healthy and happy, indeed a good indicator of contentment is the fact that they reproduce readily”

Rabbits readily reproducing is not a sign of contentment at all, it simply means that you do not have a neutering programme in place.
As a farm that claims to be passionate about animal welfare you should introduce a neutering programme for the following reasons:

• Preventing indiscriminate breeding taking place, by allowing such breeding to occur you could be unwittingly breeding poor genetic traits such as dental problems.

• At present, the unstructured breeding is not necessarily allowing sufficient time for the females to recover between litters and could lead to a large male mating with a small female, causing her distress during birth.

• Over 33,000 rabbits are bought into rescue centres every year, and every rabbit bred and sold from your farm is denying one of these rescue rabbits a home, and unless you carry out home-checks on all potential purchasers of your rabbits and educate them on the many needs of their new pet they could well end up in a rescue themselves.

• Up to 85% of un-neutered female rabbits contract uterine cancer by the age of 4

“We have never had an injury when mixing rabbits and guinea pigs” ….”we do not usually run them together only when space is at a premium or sometimes the more athletic rabbits jump from pen to pen”

I’m glad to hear you have never had an injury but this is more by luck than anything else, there is absolutely no justification for keeping Guinea Pigs and Rabbits together, and if you did not have an endless supply of babies arriving all the time you wouldn’t have a issues with space! And a rabbit does not need to be particularly “athletic” in order to jump over a less than knee-height wall – rabbits jump, it’s what they do.
“None of our rabbits are petted against their will”
I’m not quite sure how you can be so categorical about this, because your rabbits do not have any shelters to run and hide in, and as I mentioned in my previous letter they are prey animals and being approached by above is very frightening for them. I have seen children tugging at their ears etc and the rabbit has no choice but to put up with it as there is no means of escape.

“They get ad lib hay everyday”

When we visited there was no hay whatsoever, each rabbit needs to eat it’s own size in hay per day as a minimum requirement not only for their digestive health but to keep their permanently growing teeth short. Maybe you need to provide hay on a more regular basis throughout the day – unlimited hay should be available at all times, it should never ever run out.

I am pleased that you are going to consider introducing nuggets as opposed to the muesli mix and I am delighted to hear that you will take my comments into account when you next upgrade your rabbit facilities – which I hope is a top priority and will be very soon.

You didn’t mention the issue I raised about the fact that on my last visit the rabbits had no water as they had kicked the woodshavings into the bowl which had then absorbed it. I would urge you to introduce water bottles straight away to prevent this happening, I don’t know how often their water dishes are checked but if this had happened after closing time they could have been without water all night.

As mentioned, I hope your rabbit facilities upgrade is very soon but in the meantime ,changes that could be made immediately would be the introduction of pellets and water bowls, ensuring their hay never runs out and even something as simple as providing some cardboard boxes on their sides in each “run” so that they have somewhere private to retreat to if they so wish.

Before you carry out any work I would really recommend you get in touch with the Rabbit Welfare Association, they are an absolute goldmine of brilliant advice on all rabbit matters and will be able to point you in the right direction on suitable housing, health and dietary requirements. Their website is www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk.

As a farm you should be educating young people and their parents on the necessary care required for all of your animal residents and at present your rabbit facilities are sending out the completely wrong message and I disagree with your assertion that all in all Cannon hall Farm is a good place for a rabbit to live – it’s not.

Why not work alongside a rabbit welfare charity/rescue and make it a selling point of your farm? Make it a really big deal how well you care for your rabbits! And instead of breeding them for sale, get them all neutered then push the services of your local rabbit rescue centre for anyone who expresses an iterest in owning rabbits, you could also be a member of the “Make mine chocolate” campaign, the goal of which is to break the cycle of acquisition and relinquishment by educating the public about the responsibilities involved in keeping a companion rabbit before a rabbit is brought home. Their website is www.makeminechocolate.org/. I am concerned that a lot of the rabbits sold at your farm will be impulse buys and something fluffy to take home after an enjoyable day out at the farm, and this saddens me.

On all other levels Cannon hall Farm is an amazing place, and you do obviously care for your other animals, it’s just the rabbits and guinea pigs that are letting you down.

Would it be possible for the RWF to send a letter or email? They might take more notice is it's from them rather than an individual.

Sounds like a really horrific place for rabbits and guinea pigs to live.

I've made some suggested tweaks Generally speaking I think you are more likely to be listened to if you take the 'might I suggest' approach rather than 'you should' as it makes most people switch off, plus I've moved some positive stuff to the start so it makes it sound like you're at least pleased about some of it :lol:


Dear Robert
Thank you for your reply to my previous letter which outlined my concerns over the welfare of your rabbits at Cannon Hall.

I am pleased to hear that you have taken on board some of my comments particularly with regard to the type of food available and the accommodation for when you next upgrade your facilities; however I would like to further clarify a few areas from some of the points you made.

First, you state that you believe that the ready reproduction of your rabbits is a good indicator of their health and happiness. I do not agree that this is the case; indeed the reason that rabbits are such prolific breeders is because their life expectancy in the wild is so limited. It is purely a factor of species and not related to their happiness and welfare.

I am pleased to hear you say that you are passionate about animal welfare and I would therefore ask that you consider introducing a neutering programme for your existing rabbits. There are many reasons for not allowing your rabbits to breed – and indeed where rabbits can jump barriers and ‘choose’ partners this is even more important. For instance:

• by allowing breeding between animals of unknown histories and ‘matches’ to occur you could be unwittingly breeding poor genetic traits such as dental problems.

• At present, the unstructured breeding is not necessarily allowing sufficient time for the females to recover between litters and could lead to a large male mating with a small female, causing her distress during birth. With your passion for animal welfare I am sure you would agree that neither of these circumstances are acceptable.

• Over 33,000 rabbits are bought into rescue centres every year, and every rabbit bred and sold from your farm is denying one of these rescue rabbits a home, and unless you carry out home-checks on all potential purchasers of your rabbits and educate them on the many needs of their new pet they could well end up in a rescue themselves.

• Up to 85% of un-neutered female rabbits contract uterine cancer by the age of 4

I am relieved to hear that you have never had an injury when mixing rabbits and guinea pigs, however I still remain concerned about this practice. It is not recommended (RSPCA, RWA to name but two welfare organisations) and by doing so yourselves, it is not demonstrating responsible ownership to visitors, whose own animals may not be so lucky.

If I may also be so bold as to suggest that if you raise the height of barriers to prevent rabbits jumping between pens, it would also resolve the problem of space being at a premium as it would also reduce the number of pregnancies. Even the most placid, small rabbits can jump knee-high pens with ease.

I am also concerned at your statement that “none of our rabbits are petted against their will”. I’m not quite sure how you can be so categorical about this, because your rabbits do not have any shelters to run and hide in, and as I mentioned in my previous letter they are prey animals and being approached by above is very frightening for them. I have seen children tugging at their ears etc and the rabbit has no choice but to put up with it as there is no means of escape.

I am pleased to hear that your rabbits are given ad lib hay every day, however when we visited there was no hay whatsoever. Each rabbit needs to eat it’s own size in hay per day as a minimum requirement not only for their digestive health but to keep their permanently growing teeth short. May I respectfully suggest that you provide hay on a more regular basis throughout the day so that it is always available and never runs out.

I also note that you did not respond to the issue about the rabbits having no water. I hope this is because you agree that it is a fundamental issue and have taken steps to ensure that all rabbits always have fresh water available, for instance by introducing additional water bottles.

As I mentioned earlier, I am pleased to hear that you will take my comments into account when you upgrade your rabbit facilities, and I hope that this takes place very soon. In the meantime I would respectfully suggest that a few simple changes could significantly improve the quality of life and welfare of the rabbits (and indeed guinea pigs) on your premises. Most notably a new food/water routine to ensure that hay and water are always available, the provision of shelters in the runs so that the animals have somewhere private to retreat to if they so wish, and raising the height of barriers between runs to prevent rabbits from indiscriminately breeding and/or fighting.

Before you carry out any work I would also recommend you get in touch with the Rabbit Welfare Association, they are an absolute goldmine of brilliant advice on all rabbit matters and will be able to point you in the right direction on a range of matters such as suitable housing, health and dietary requirements. Their website is www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk.

As a farm you carry the responsibility of educating young people and their parents on the necessary care required for all of your animal residents. At present your rabbit facilities are sending out the completely wrong message and I disagree with your assertion that all in all Cannon Hall Farm is a good place for a rabbit to live – it’s not.

Why not work alongside a rabbit welfare charity/rescue and make it a selling point of your farm? Make it a really big deal how well you care for your rabbits! And instead of breeding them for sale, get them all neutered then push the services of your local rabbit rescue centre for anyone who expresses an interest in owning rabbits, you could also be a member of the “Make mine chocolate” campaign, the goal of which is to break the cycle of acquisition and relinquishment by educating the public about the responsibilities involved in keeping a companion rabbit before a rabbit is brought home. Their website is www.makeminechocolate.org/. I am concerned that a lot of the rabbits sold at your farm will be impulse buys and something fluffy to take home after an enjoyable day out at the farm, with no thought to the ongoing needs and welfare of the rabbits, and this saddens me.

On all other levels Cannon Hall Farm is an amazing place, and you do obviously care for your other animals, it’s just the rabbits and guinea pigs that are letting you down and I urge you to re-think your husbandry in this area to demonstrate that you really are passionate about all your animals!

I think your reply is great well done But I do agree with Santa - it's always best to do the manipulative softly softly approach in your wording to avoid putting their back up instantly, and then they might not read the rest of your letter - of which the content is excellent! :thumb:

It's always good to start off by grooming their egos too - tell them how wonderful they are at the begining - the things they do get right etc.. the positives - as Santa says, then say how disappointed you are. I also find a good tactic is to take their own words as you have done - and from any advertising they do that reinforces what they believe they are doing - and then show how they are not meeting what they are advertising - this always embarasses them as it's a truth they can't avoid, but done in the right way can make a good point.

Try and keep it formal - so abbreviations such as 'it's not' always sound better if typed out properly... such as 'it is not' etc. But otherwise it's very good.

Well done again :wave:

paulinejoe said:

Dear Robert
Thank you for your reply to my previous letter which outlined my concerns over the welfare of your rabbits at Cannon Hall.
I would like to respond to some of the points you made:
….”believe that our rabbits are healthy and happy, indeed a good indicator of contentment is the fact that they reproduce readily”

Rabbits readily reproducing is not a sign of contentment at all, it simply means that you do not have a neutering programme in place.
As a farm that claims to be passionate about animal welfare you should introduce a neutering programme for the following reasons:

• Preventing indiscriminate breeding taking place, by allowing such breeding to occur you could be unwittingly breeding poor genetic traits such as dental problems.

• At present, the unstructured breeding is not necessarily allowing sufficient time for the females to recover between litters and could lead to a large male mating with a small female, causing her distress during birth.

• Over 33,000 rabbits are bought into rescue centres every year, and every rabbit bred and sold from your farm is denying one of these rescue rabbits a home, and unless you carry out home-checks on all potential purchasers of your rabbits and educate them on the many needs of their new pet they could well end up in a rescue themselves.

• Up to 85% of un-neutered female rabbits contract uterine cancer by the age of 4

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all good but IIRC that last figure only relates to unspayed, non-breeding does. rabbits which reproduce stand a much lower chance of developing cancer.

“We have never had an injury when mixing rabbits and guinea pigs” ….”we do not usually run them together only when space is at a premium or sometimes the more athletic rabbits jump from pen to pen”

I’m glad to hear you have never had an injury but this is more by luck than anything else, there is absolutely no justification for keeping Guinea Pigs and Rabbits together, and if you did not have an endless supply of babies arriving all the time you wouldn’t have a issues with space! And a rabbit does not need to be particularly “athletic” in order to jump over a less than knee-height wall – rabbits jump, it’s what they do.

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I like. Maybe you should mention that the reason that they can jump so high is their powerful hind leg muscles which could easily deliver a crippling blow to a guinea pig. Might also be worth saying that the reason the other rabbits may not be jumping over is that they aren't used to using their muscles because of the lack of space (unless the spaces were ok, obviously)

I am pleased that you are going to consider introducing nuggets as opposed to the muesli mix and I am delighted to hear that you will take my comments into account when you next upgrade your rabbit facilities – which I hope is a top priority and will be very soon.

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I'd put something like "I look forward to visiting again and seeing your beautiful rabbits in their updated home!"

Before you carry out any work I would really recommend you get in touch with the Rabbit Welfare Association, they are an absolute goldmine of brilliant advice on all rabbit matters and will be able to point you in the right direction on suitable housing, health and dietary requirements. Their website is www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk.

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bits like this are fantastic because you sound really positive and like you're trying to help them out rather than complaining.

As a farm you should be educating young people and their parents on the necessary care required for all of your animal residents and at present your rabbit facilities are sending out the completely wrong message and I disagree with your assertion that all in all Cannon hall Farm is a good place for a rabbit to live – it’s not.

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I would put, instead of "should be educating", "you have an excellent opportunity to educate"
and also instead of that last bit put something like "I see why you would consider cannon hall farm a good place for rabbits to live compared to the traditional 3ft hutch and the bottom of the garden, but looking at the changing attitudes to rabbits and their needs I would disagree. With a few inexpensive and simple changes you could set a brilliant example and give your rabbits a better quality of life"


I like your suggestion of supporting rescues, and you could also suggest that they find some teddies that look similar to their rabbits and offer an 'adopt a rabbit' service whereby someone can pay £10 for the toy and the proceeds will go to feed, neuter and look after that rabbit. or you could say that £10 is towards a myxi jab or something which would inform people of the costs of rabbit keeping.

On all other levels Cannon hall Farm is an amazing place, and you do obviously care for your other animals, it’s just the rabbits and guinea pigs that are letting you down.

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brilliant to end on a positive note. Maybe reword it to "I was sad to see that your rabbit and guinea pig enclosures were not up to the high standard that the rest of your establishment keeps to, but i'm really glad that you've taken on board the suggestions and taken the time to respond to me.
I hope that you do stick to this because I believe it will benefit your farm, your animals and your customers.

edit: god I'm slow, I'll read your updated one after work!

BattleKat said:

I'd put something like "I look forward to visiting again and seeing your beautiful rabbits in their updated home!"

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Yes that's a good one. I did that for the garden centre chain - and so then they had a time limit because they knew I was coming back to inspect! :lol:

Thanks guys :wave: Santa, that's brilliant, thankyou I've used your version and then added in some of Battlekats suggestions, thanks too I just need to take out the it's's and change to it is's and then I think it's done!, i won't send it off tonight in case anyone else has any ideas too. I'll put the finished version on tomorrow.

Does this mean they leave them to in-breed? :shock:

UsagiYojimbo said:

Does this mean they leave them to in-breed? :shock:

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I don't know really, there always seems to be a litter of babies on the go, and with the living arrangements so open plan I really don't know how they could possibly be keeping tabs on who's breeding with who, maybe if they remove the babies fast enough they could maybe know it was only the existing adults breeding but i have no idea if they do that or not :?